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Ghost fleet sits on the economic crisis
Ghost fleet sits on the economic crisis
Ghost fleet sits on the economic crisis
We are in Sungit, a Malaysian city located in the Malacca strait for centuries, fishermen here have watched cargo ships transporting goods. However , since 2008 many of these huge ships have been stranded at sea victims of the international crisis and consequent reduced levels of global commerce have left these iron giants unemployed and despite signs that economies around the world are beginning to recover the outlook fro maritime shipping remains pessimistic.
A small fishing boat takes us up to the ‘’ghost fleet’’ around us are hundreds of cargo ships, nearly all of them empty and without crew the only people left here are the armed guards contracted to protect the ships against piracy attacks something relatively common in this area the Malacca strait one of the oldest and most important maritime routes in the world for centuries all kinds of goods and commodities have passed through here on route between Europe and the far East.The oil consumed by Shanghai, Japanese cameras, T-shirts and shoes made in china…
These and thousands of other products travel across this 800 kilometres stretch of water bordering on Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and surrounded by jungle.Years ago, before the Aden gulf became the centre of the international piracy the Malacca strait was the most heavily attacked route in the world but action taken by the nearby countries has improved the situation.
The captain asks to see our identification before letting us jump aboard. He agree to explain what crew is doing in the middle of the ocean with no destination in sight we have been here for at least three or four months (the crisis gets worse day by day and I’m worried because I don’t see any improvement , we are not doing nothing . just waiting, we only do maintenance work in the engine rooms)exports from many Asian countries are now increasing with some countries already exporting the same volume as before the crisis however, around 90 per cent of international commerce travels by sea.
Basically there is no enough trade to justify having the number of ships that we have so without having trade it is cheaper for the ship owner to have the ship stopped in places like the Malacca Strait. During the boom years everyone wanted to buy new ships and wanted to have more ships, everyone put orders on ships that now no one knows what to do with although there are some ships with Japanese and south Korean flags, most are from Europe they prefer to stay here because it’s cheaper than anchoring up in their own countries.The ship owner must pay a lot of money when the ship is in the port, that’s why we are sea is it gree of change to stay on sea? Yes , it is free everyone is reporting losses or much less profit than made in previous years and a few companies went bankrupt I think that this year will still be very , very hard in all segments of shipping after the sunset thousands of lights appear on the sungit coast The ghost fleet is like a city which appears on no map and it will be there until international commerce rises once again.
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